Joe Gores - Spade & Archer

“That’s no way to act, Sam. He was just—”

“Get him out.” Spade leaned over Effie Perine’s desk to ask in a soft, very different voice, “You all right, angel?”

She gave Spade a wan smile. The color was coming back to her face. She nodded.

The tension was leaving Dundy’s body. He stepped back a pace. “We’re going, Spade. But you’re coming with us.”

Ignoring him, Spade said to Polhaus, “This a pinch, Tom?”

“Nothing like that, Sam. They just want to ask you some questions like, over in Sausalito.”

“Sausalito? All you had to do was call. I’d of come running. This is what I’ve been waiting for.”

“Sausalito! You admit you’re involved!” trumpeted Dundy.

“Of course I’m involved. I’ve been pointing my finger at Sausalito for you birds all along.”

“Now you can point it from the other side of the bay.” Dundy raised a hand as if to grab Spade’s arm, thought better of it, dropped his hand.

Still ignoring him, Spade asked Effie Perine, “Any calls?”

“One.” She cast a look at Dundy, then spoke in a malice-laden voice as she consulted her notebook, though it was obvious she didn’t need to. “Sid said he went to see Mr. — see our client about that problem he’d been having, that the client finds the result satisfactory, and that he’s holding a check for you.”

“That’s my girl.” To Polhaus, he said, “Let’s go get that police launch to Sausalito, Tom. Bring your boyfriend with you. And tell him he never, not ever, threatens my secretary again. Not about anything. Ever. He got that?”

Sergeant Dundy was silent, pinch faced, simmering.

Tom Polhaus mumbled, “Yeah, he’s got it, Sam.”

The police launch was a white quick narrow cutter that sliced through the bay’s Friday clutter of pleasure boats like a surgeon’s scalpel through flesh. It threw spume out on either side of its bow and left a spreading wake.

Sam Spade, standing in the narrow prow, gazed out through the Golden Gate at a cargo ship waddling its way out, hull down on the horizon. Another was lumbering in from the open Pacific between Land’s End and the Marin headlands. Also on the horizon were the low, irregular shapes of the Farallons, visited by nesting seabirds and little else except, in season, pods of whales migrating south toward the warm Mexican waters. Of course any night of the year bootleggers might be found out there, transferring Canadian whiskey from ships to fishing boats.

The wind whipping Spade’s coat about him made smoking impossible. The roar of the engines made conversation almost as difficult, but Tom Polhaus tried, coming up to stand beside Spade and grip the rail with both white-knuckled hands.

“The Marin County sheriff is holding a friend of yours, Sam!” he yelled in Spade’s ear. “He said he was doing some work for you! That’s why we came to get you!”

Seeing Polhaus there, Dundy came bustling importantly up on Spade’s other side. He looked pleased.

“Legger named Benny Ruiz!” he shouted. “Got him dead to rights! And for a lot more than bringing in Canadian booze!”

“Fisherman, not a legger!” yelled Spade automatically.

“Wait till you see what they caught him with!”

Dundy made a futile grab for his black derby hat as the wind snatched it from his head and twirled it around twice before dropping it in the wake far behind the boat. Dundy cursed impotently. Spade, plaid cap pulled down hard over his eyes, laughed aloud.

The Marin County sheriffs deputy who met them at the dock was long and lank with an unexpected watermelon potbelly under a gaudy yellow-and-green checked woolen shirt. He wore a black wide-brimmed fedora and a heavy tan corduroy jacket and black denim jeans over muddy boots, one of which was partially unlaced.

“Glad to see you fellers,” he said, shaking hands all around. He had a two-day stubble and his left eye was slightly cocked. “The boss’s at the site of the crime, waitin’ for us.” His voice got excited. “Caught Benny Ruiz right there, didn’t we? Still had the shovel in his hand, didn’t he? We’ve had our eye on him for months, haven’t we? A criminal type for sure.”

He led them to a long black touring car with the sheriffs decal on the door and a red light mounted on top.

Spade asked indifferently, “What does Benny say?”

“Officially, he ain’t talkin’. But hell, everybody in town knows he was lookin’ fer Fingers Lisboa.”

“And found him,” said Dundy with great delight.

They drove south along the waterfront until the road made an abrupt ninety-degree turn to the right, where Richardson Street slanted up the hillside behind the bay. The deputy pulled off on the sandy shoulder beside another sheriffs car and killed the engine.

The four men got out, the slam of the doors loud above the slosh of waves. They were beside a large pale-lemon frame house set on the high ground back from the shore, its front room extending out from the land on creosoted posts sunk into concrete bases. Its windows faced Richardson Bay above a strip of sandy beach, with the water washing in beneath it.

When Spade saw where they had stopped, he shook his head and gave an ironic chuckle.

“What’s so funny?” demanded Dundy suspiciously.

“The Stevenson house,” said Spade.

As he spoke a substantial man, who, unlike his deputy, was in uniform, got out of the other car. He had a meaty face with a heavy sandy mustache and bristling brows above muddy eyes. His hat was like those worn by Canadian Mounties in dress uniform. He nodded ponderously to each of them in turn, but thrust his hand out to shake only with Spade.

“Sorry to drag you over here, Sam, but we have questions that need answers.”

“Sure you do.”

The sheriff led them, slipping and sliding, down over the rocks to the sandy beach. Spade went slowly, favoring his cracked ribs while trying not to show it. He drew a breath between clenched teeth when he jumped down to the beach. The floor of the Stevenson house was fifteen feet above their heads.

“Seems mighty strange the bootleggers know it’s safe to land their booze right here in town,” said Dundy accusingly.

“Just some of ’em some of the time,” said the sheriff. “I ain’t got but two deputies and me to cover the whole damn county, and the feds ain’t much help. Sometimes things slip through.”

Spade walked in and up under the house to a large rectangle of dug-up sand. Beside it four loglike objects had been laid out in a neat row under heavy tarpaulins.

“Dead men tell no tales,” said Spade.

The sheriff had come up beside him. “These sure ain’t talkin’. We’re relyin’ on you to shed some light on events.”

“This is where you grabbed Benny Ruiz?”

“We got a tip and snuck down here, an’ didn’t we find him right here with a shovel in his hand?” said the deputy eagerly.

“Benny was digging them up,” said Spade, “not burying them. I asked him to look for Fingers Lisboa and asked him to think about where the San Anselmo’s missing gold might be. He must have seen this dug-up sand and thought he’d found it.”

“What’d you want with Lisboa?” demanded Dundy.

Spade said to the sheriff, “How long have they been dead?”

“Coroner says different times most like. I wanted you to see ’em here in situ, like the feller says, fore he moved ’em.”

Spade went down the row of corpses, stooping to flip the tarps down to expose each of the faces. He showed no reaction. Then he came back, indicating each man in turn.

“This one is Quartermaster Kest from the San Anselmo, as Dundy knows full well. This one is Fingers Lisboa. The next one is his cousin Figueiro Mondego. This fourth one is a shiv artist name of Villalba Berlingas.”